Mort Zuckerman
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 Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:20 am Post subject: Yale - Rx pain killers/psychotropics kill more people than s |
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Subject: Yale - Rx pain killers/psychotropics kill more people than
street drugs
Date: Nov 11, 2008 6:17 AM
American Psychiatrogenic Association cares though. They would *NEVER*
hurt anyone:
http://www.actionlyme.org/BRAINDAMAGE.htm
In fact, the mechanisms of psychotropics/pain killers' brain
and nerve damage is Yale>s Psychiatric Department>s Chair>s
main topic:
http://www.actionlyme.org/BUNNEY_YALE_BRAIN_DAMAGE.htm
"Biological Abnormalities of Movement Disorders"
Akathisia:
http://www.actionlyme.org/AKATHISIA_VIOLENCE.htm
And most of all, they would never *think* of lying under oath:
http://www.actionlyme.org/andersonpenisbiter.htm
http://www.actionlyme.org/PENISBITERDOCS.htm
-------------------------------------
http://rinf.com/alt-news/business-news/prescription-drugs-kill-300-percent-more-americans-than-illegal-drugs/4837/
Prescription Drugs Kill 300 Percent More Americans than Illegal Drugs
Monday, November 10th, 2008
By David Gutierrez | A report by the Florida Medical Examiners
Commission has concluded
that prescription drugs have outstripped illegal drugs as a cause of
death.
An analysis of 168,900 autopsies conducted in Florida in 2007 found
that three times
as many people were killed by legal drugs as by cocaine, heroin and
all methamphetamines
put together. According to state law enforcement officials, this is a
sign of a
burgeoning prescription drug abuse problem.
“The abuse has reached epidemic proportions,” said Lisa McElhaney, a
sergeant in
the pharmaceutical drug diversion unit of the Broward County Sheriff’s
Office. “It’s
just explosive.”
In 2007, cocaine was responsible for 843 deaths, heroin for 121,
methamphetamines
for 25 and marijuana for zero, for a total of 989 deaths. In contrast,
2,328 people
were killed by opioid painkillers, including Vicodin and Oxycontin,
and 743 were
killed by drugs containing benzodiazepine, including the depressants
Valium and
Xanax.
Alcohol directly caused 466 deaths, but was found in the bodies of
4,179 cadavers
in all.
While the number of dead bodies containing heroin jumped 14 percent
from the prior
year, to a total of 110, the number of deaths influenced by the
painkiller oxycodone
increased by 36 percent, to a total of 1,253.
Across the country, prescription drugs have become an increasingly
popular alternative
to the more difficult to acquire illegal drugs. Even as illegal drug
use among teenagers
have fallen, prescription drug abuse has increased. For example, while
4 percent
of U.S. 12th graders were using Oxycontin in 2002, by 2005 that number
had increased
to 5.5 percent.
It’s not hard for teens to come by prescription drugs, according to
Sgt. Tracy Busby,
supervisor of the Calaveras County, Calif., Sheriff’s Office narcotics
unit.
“You go to every medicine cabinet in the county, and I bet you’re
going to find
some sort of prescription medicine in 95 percent of them,” he said.
Adults can acquire prescriptions by faking injuries, or by visiting
multiple doctors
and pharmacies for the same health complaint. Some people get more
drugs than they
expect to need, then sell the extras.
“You have health care providers involved, you have doctor shoppers,
and then there
are crimes like robbing drug shipments,” said Jeff Beasley of the
Florida Department
of Law Enforcement. “There is a multitude of ways to get these drugs,
and that’s
what makes things complicated.”
And while some people may believe that the medicines’ legality makes
them less dangerous
than illegal drugs, Tuolumne County, Calif., Sheriff’s Office Deputy
Dan Crow warns
that this is not the case. Because everybody reacts differently to
foreign chemicals,
there is no way of predicting the exact response anyone will have to a
given dosage.
That is why prescription drugs are supposed to be taken under a
doctor’s supervision.
“All this stuff is poison,” Crow said. “Your body will fight all of
this stuff.”
Tuolumne County Health Officer Todd Stolp agreed. A prescription drug
taken recreationally
is “much like a firearm in the hands of someone who’s not trained to
use them,”
he said.
While anyone taking a prescription medicine runs a risk of negative
effects, the
drugs are even more dangerous when abused. For example, many
painkillers are designed
to have a delayed effect that fades out over time. This can lead
recreational users
to take more drugs before the old ones are out of their system,
placing them at
risk of an overdose. Likewise, the common practice of grinding pills
up causes a
large dose of drugs to hit the body all at once, with potentially
dangerous consequences.
“A medication that was meant to be distributed over 24 hours has
immediate effect,”
Stolp said.
Even more dangerous is the trend of mixing drugs with alcohol, which,
like most
popularly abused drugs, is a depressant.
“In the case of alcohol and drugs, one plus one equals more than two,”
said Tuolumne
County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Lt. Dan Bressler.
Florida pays careful attention to drug-related deaths, and as such has
significantly
better data on the problem than any other state. But a recent study
conducted by
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) suggests that the problem is
indeed national.
According to the DEA, the number of people abusing prescription drugs
in the United
States has jumped 80 percent in six years to seven million, or more
than those abusing
cocaine, Ecstasy, heroin, hallucinogens an inhalants put together.
Not surprisingly, there has been a corresponding increase in deaths.
According to
the Drug Abuse Warning Network, the number of emergency room visits
related to painkillers
has increased by 153 percent since 1995. And a 2007 report by the
Justice Department
National Intelligence Drug Center found that deaths related to the
opioid methadone
jumped from 786 in 1999 to 3,849 in 2004 - an increase of 390 percent.
Many experts attribute the trend to the increasing popularity among
doctors of prescribing
painkillers, combined with a leap in direct-to-consumer marketing by
drug companies.
For example, promotional spending on Oxycontin increased threefold
between 1996
and 2001, to $30 million per year.
Sonora, Calif., pharmacist Eddie Howard reports that he’s seen
painkiller prescriptions
jump dramatically in the last five years.
“I don’t know that there is that much pain out there to demand such an
increase,”
he said.
The trend concerns Howard, and he tries to keep an eye out for
patients who are
coming in too frequently. But he admits that there is little he can do
about the
problem.
“When you have a lot of people waiting for prescriptions, it’s hard to
find time
to play detective,” he said.
Still, the situation makes Howard uncomfortable.
“It almost makes me a legalized drug dealer, and that’s not a good
position to be
in,” he said.
Sources for this story include: www.nytimes.com; www.uniondemocrat.com |
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